28857: Leiderman reply to 28844 -- Port-au-Prince..."Big Mango"? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leiderman@mindspring.com


8 August 2006

dear Readers:

the more reports I read about today's Port-au-Prince, the more I'm persuaded that the city is improperly structured, supplied and managed for today's people and pressures.  I expect most of you would agree this is an understatement, but I have never hear a plea or read a proposal to redesign the city to accommodate 3 million or more people.  the impression is that those who control the structure and function of Port-au-Prince have a death wish against the residents.

I understand Port-au-Prince was originally well-conceived and designed for approx. 300,000, but that the population outstripped it in the early 1900's.  I would like to gather Haitian land planners, designers, geographers and P-au-P residents together for an exercise to re-design the city, create smaller boroughs, establish greenways and security corridors, separate waterways from sewageways, reserve or clear space for commerce and industry, lower slum density, etc.  it would probably have to occuply more land, but I think it would make the city easier to manage, healthier to live in and likely more job-worthy.  to start, I've appended some websites with maps of the area.

this change is precisely what Haiti would have to do if, for example, it wanted to host a Caribbean regional event or even the Olympics someday as a national coming-out party.  so why not use the idea now to examine and propose a new plan for the capital city?  where is "Action for Port-au-Prince" on the list of foreign assistance priorities?  I just see more uniforms, guns and ditchdigging.

New York City with its boroughs is known all over the world as "The Big Apple."  Port-au-Prince can become "The Big Mango."

thank you,

Stuart Leiderman

maps:

Anonymous manuscript map of Port-au-Prince, c. 1710. Cartes Marines, The Newberry Library, Chicago.
http://www.newberry.org/smith/exhibits/fe/37c.html

d'Anville, "Plan du Cul de Sac de Leogane ou le Port au Prince," Paris, ca.1730's
http://www.fairmaps.com/cgi-bin/map-builder.cgi?Hispaniola+SW1186

Port-au-Prince, Topographic 1:250,000, US Geological Survey, 1984
http://209.15.138.224/haiti_maps/m_portauprincex.htm

Port-au-Prince, Central, Orthophoto 1:12,500, U.S. Army, 1967
http://209.15.138.224/haiti_maps/m_haitine18-8x.htm

Port-au-Prince, Coastal Survey, U.S. Navy, 1943
http://mapsandprints.net/details.cfm?type=maps&auto_key=1560096

Port-au-Prince Area, Haiti, space image June 1985
http://209.15.138.224/haiti_maps/s_AreaHaitix.htm

Miscellaneous maps and space images of Haiti
http://209.15.138.224/haiti_maps/maps.htm#city